Saturday, December 4, 2010

MEXICO ARRESTS 14-YEAR-OLD HITMAN

Mexico (AP) - In cargo pants and a T-shirt, the skinny, American-born 14-year-old looked like he should be in middle school. Instead he was surrounded by three armed Mexican soldiers in ski masks and camouflage as he told reporters that he helped a Mexican drug gang behead four people. Mexican officials say they arrested Edgar Jimenez Lugo, a youth known as “El Ponchis” late Thursday at an airport south of Mexico City with a 19-year-old sister who is accused of helping him dump the bodies. Authorities said he was caught with two cell phones that held photographs of tortured victims. Many youths have been used by drug cartels in their bloody battles against the government and each other, but the story of El Ponchis may be the most shocking. A YouTube video that emerged a month ago sparked talk of a child hit man - said by some to be as young as 12.

“I participated in four executions, but I did it drugged and under threat that if I didn’t, they would kill me,” the boy said calmly, showing no remorse. He told reporters he was kidnapped at the age of 11 and forced to work for the Cartel of the South Pacific, a branch of the splintered Beltran Leyva gang, and that he had participated in at least four decapitations. Authorities said the siblings were detained at an airport near Cuernavaca in Morelos state with paid tickets to flee the country. The boy’s sister said they were headed for Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and seek refuge with their stepmother in San Diego. Their mother sent them money for the tickets, she said, but it was not clear where their parents are.

Murders committed by minors have risen across in Mexico. The wealth of the corrupt world is appealing to some of the children who see it as a way out of their poverty-stricken lives. Parents in the violent cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana on the U.S. border say children as young as 8 want to grow up to be drug lords, as the trafficking world touches their lives. As these minors are still not fully developed it is easy to influence and manipulate them and then persuade to carry out terrible acts without really realise what they are doing. Only by receiving spiritual teachings one can cope with the materialistic and atheistic education, an example is Prahlāda Mahārāja, the saintly son of the demon king Hiranyakaśipu.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Hiranyakaśipu sent Prahlada Mahārāja, who was well versed in ethics, to Nanda and Amarka, the two sons of the demon-guru Śukrācārya. ... They carefully took Prahlada and the other demon children to an island. There, they began to teach him about dharma, artha and kama-material religiosity, economic development and sense gratification. ... Due to Prahlada’s influence, the minds of the demon children became fixed on the Supreme Lord. The anxious brahmanas Nanda and Amarka immediately went to the demon king to explain the situation. Hearing this implacable message, Hiranyakaśipu became extremely angry. With harsh words, he condemned the young Prahlada who was standing politely with folded hands: “Why are you not afraid of me? Who has given you this strength?” Prahlada Mahārāja replied, “Strength only comes from the one Supreme Lord, Sri Hari. Everyone gets their strength from Him. No one is our enemy except the uncontrolled mind. ... Those who have conquered the mind see no one as their enemy. Only the ignorant believe others to be their enemy.”